


Chivalry was dead (but you revived it)

by dwellingondreams



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Anxiety, Dirty Jokes, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Baggage, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Everyone Hates Bobby Marks, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Fuck Bobby Marks, Implied Sexual Content, Mason is Bad at Feelings, One Shot, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fill, References to Shakespeare, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: Then he lets his hand brush against hers. Oh, fuck no. They’re not having a repeat of when he showed up at her flat and tried to kiss her. Leah jerks away in disgust- then sucks in a breath of shock as a hand emerges from the dark, over the rail, grabs Bobby by the front of his pressed dress shirt, and yanks him forward.Bobby all but squeals in terror, losing his footing, and goes toppling over the rail, which is not even waist height for him. Leah watches as he lands in the ornamental ferns some ten feet below, not sure if she should shout in alarm or shriek with laughter. A groan floats up to her ears, as Mason clambers up and straddles the rail, looking at her rather smugly.“But soft,” Leah says, “what light through yonder window breaks?”“Pretty sure that’s my line, sweetheart.”
Relationships: Female Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles), Past Female Detective/Bobby Marks (The Wayhaven Chronicles)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Chivalry was dead (but you revived it)

The last time Leah was dragged to a black tie event by her mother, she wound up leaving in an ambulance after a deliberately giving herself a mild but alarming allergic reaction via the shrimp cocktails, so she should admit that so far this is going better than last time. 

However, just because she’s twenty seven and can’t afford an ambulance bill doesn’t mean she’s thrilled to be here anymore than she was at thirteen. She’s already pushing it by wearing a metallic blue dress that admittedly looks more suitable for the frontwoman of a folk rock band during a concert at Glastonbury than it is for a fairly conservative evening of cocktails and live jazz, and the almost ragged asymmetric hemline hovering around her calves and silver-buckled ankle boots is not helping her case. 

Still, the occasional disapproving look is pretty worth it, in Leah’s mind. Just let Sung try to make some stuffy comment on her outfit. It’s an evening gown. She’ll have his ass in a sensitivity seminar so quick he won’t know what hit him. That’s maybe a bit unfair of her, though. Mayor Friedman is the one looked like she was coming at him with a cattle prod when her mother dragged her over to say hello and compliment the decorations, as one is apparently supposed to do at these events. 

Leah doesn’t think much of them. The Friedmans live in a large, grandiose house on the outskirts of town that is trying to pretend to be a lot more stately and old than it actually is. In her opinion, it’s a disaster of mismatched pillars, vaulted ceilings, and odd choices in flooring, even if their surround sound is pretty cool. The only thing she’s really enjoyed thus far is the food; they did not skimp on the appetizers, and she’s had like seven mozzarella sticks so far, plus these jalapeno poppers that are really delicious, the Bazirs do great catering-

“Leah,” her mother says, materializing by her side. “I don’t think this is what Captain Sung intended when he secured you an invitation to this event.”

Rebecca is, of course, Leah thinks, as beautiful as she has ever been, her red hair pulled into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck, sleek and glossy, looking about ten years younger than her age, her emerald gown contrasting perfectly with her pale skin and fiery hair, and bringing out the color of her eyes, the light green she and Leah both share. 

“Yeah,” says Leah, who at one point would have been annoyed just to be in the presence of her mother’s perfect attire, spotless hair and makeup, her cool and crisp tone, totally unruffled, always at ease in any situation, poised and calm, but who is currently trying to work on the decade and a half of bitterness and resentment built up between them, “well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, you know? He should just be glad I didn’t cash in my plus one.”

Still, it would be nice to have some friendly faces around. Verda’s here, but he’s off with Eric and some other friends in a corner, laughing over what is probably a great joke about the medical field, and she doesn’t want to be the odd man out, the younger, less stable, slightly-dysfunctional-let’s-be-honest rogue detective, the only one unmarried and childless, not that she’s complaining about that bit. Tina’s babysitting for Verda tonight; Leah almost wishes she was there with her. 

Cara and Lacey are generally pretty well behaved, easy kids, and Tina’s kind of like a big kid herself, and with them Leah’s sure she’d have a good four or five hours of jumping on the couch, making popcorn, watching endless cartoon reruns, and ordering pizza only to slop it down the front of her shirt. And she’s be in sweatpants and sneakers, reclining on a couch, instead of awkwardly shifting from foot to foot in these boots, that while stylishly edgy, are also brand new and not quite broken in yet. Still better than heels, though. 

Her phone buzzes in her satchel, giving her an excuse to turn away from her mother’s penetrating ‘I know you don’t really want to be here but it’s time to act like an adult instead of sulking in the corner all evening like a spoilt child’ stare, but it’s not who she was expecting- hoping. 

Instead Leah grins to herself over some absurd, outdated meme Felix has sent to the group chat as he continues to try to parse together contemporary internet humor, watching Nat’s endless line of typing dots, which will be like that for the next fifteen minutes as she tries to formulate a polite but confused response. Ava rarely texts at all, and Mason… 

Well, he’s not exactly predictable. 

Still trapped at mayor’s shindig, she texts. Expect full report tomorrow.

She stows her phone away a moment later, and glances back at Rebecca. 

“Fine,” Leah says, trying to keep some of the defensiveness out of her tone. “I’ll… make the rounds.”

For the first half fifteen minutes or so of that, it actually goes better than expected. The consequences of such a small town is that she does know most of these people, so it’s not as if she’s surrounded by real strangers. 

Does that means she wants to make small talk with them and listen to their complaints about parking tickets and noise citations? No, and she really wishes she still drank, this would make this a lot easier, but for the most part people don’t actually care what she has to say, they just want her to smile and nod and agree with them.

Not the best feeling in the world, but it’s better than an impromptu interrogation.

Leah is somewhat awkwardly conversing with the district superintendent who oversaw one of her hearings when they were trying to throw her out of the ‘mainstream’ high school and into the ‘alternative’ one for her ‘behavioral issues’ when she hears an all too familiar footfall. She stiffens minutely, then forces herself to turn, smile tightening as Boddy struts over. She’d been really, really hoping to avoid him tonight, but here you have it. 

Somehow, whenever they’re at the same public event, he always finds a way. 

Like life, and too-smart velociraptors. 

His smile is about as toothy. 

Bobby’s always been a good dresser, Leah can admit that much, which is why in the aftermath of their break-up she burned both of the expensive sweatshirts he’d given her/she’d stolen, in a bin, in the student parking lot behind the science wing. Luckily, his threat to take her to small claims court over it didn’t pan out. 

Tonight he’s wearing a sharply tailored suit that wouldn’t look out of place at an awards show- Leah supposes that’s a bonus of being an archetypical struggling millennial ‘independent journalist’ supported by his upper middle class parents- his dad’s a dental surgeon and his mum runs her own accounting firm, honestly- despite all his claims otherwise on Twitter. 

It’s a metallic blue, to her annoyance, not very far off in shade from her dress, with matching cufflinks, which he adjusts as he… smarms his way over, kissing ass and shaking hands, all blinding white teeth and gelled back dirty blonde hair. 

Leah hopes to beat a narrow escape, but finds her exit route blocked off by two old ladies catching up, and has nowhere to go but out onto the balcony overlooking the Friedmans’ expansive back yard. It’s raining lightly outside, but she’ll take her chances with the weather, if it’s that or winding up locked into excruciating conversation with Bobby. The last time they were around each other at a party, drinks were thrown, and while she’d like to think she’s matured since then, she absolutely knows he hasn’t. 

The fact that he’s still blatantly hung up on her seven years later would be amusing if it wasn’t, you know, her. It’s like slowing down to gawk at a car wreck on the side of the road… and then that car wreck following you home. 

Once outside, Leah takes a moment to relish the cool, damp summer night, letting the wind waft over her flushed face and leaning against the wrought iron railing, listening to the muffled sound of the music and chatter from inside. At any sort of events like this as a kid, she’d just say she had to use the bathroom and then spend as long in there as possible, reading the back of whatever she could find in the medicine cabinet, until her mother came looking for her. She’s not nearly as anxious an adult as she was as a little girl, but it is nice to be away from the crowds and noise. 

Maybe she can just stay out here for another fifteen, twenty minutes, eat up as much time as possible. An hour, she promised Sung. She’d stay for at least an hour so as not to embarrass him and the department by skipping out early. Surely she can make it an hour, and then she can go home, extricate herself from this dress and these shoes, and lie on her couch watching true crime documentaries, wondering if half of the unsolved murders on TV are actually the result of supernatural mayhem and government conspiracy. Yeah. Sounds like a promising night.

Or maybe, a little voice says, if you’re not too tired after you get home and shower, you can see if Mason’s still up. 

Well, she knows he’ll be up. He’s a vampire. It’s nighttime. That’s not the point. The point is-

She forgets what the point is, because the odds are not on her side tonight. Bobby slips out onto the balcony to join her, looking like the cat that caught the canary. She thought he wouldn’t risk his hair and clothes in the rain, but he evidently judges it dry enough to proceed, and saunters over, pulling out his lighter. Great. Just like old times. 

“Fancy meeting you here, stranger,” he says, as he pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

“I thought you vaped now, or something,” Leah mutters.

“Yeah, well,” Bobby rolls his neck, and she rolls her eyes at the pop, “old habits die hard. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” 

She narrows her eyes at him as he lights up, then almost physically turns away when he offers her one. “You know I don’t smoke anymore.”

“Right,” Bobby says, sarcastically, putting the pack away. “And I don’t have a nose for a story.”

“You’ve got a nose for ass-kissing,” she mumbles, but he can’t hear her over his relieved sigh at his first puff.

“I’ll give you this,” he says, “I don’t know how you deal with these people when they come down into the station complaining about their lost cats or their noisy neighbors, I really don’t. I’ve had more enlightening conversations at raves.”

“Right,” says Leah, “I forget your ‘reporting’ takes you to so many interesting places, Bobby. Maybe even away from me. That could be an interesting new assignment.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he smiles sardonically at her. “Am I bothering you, angel?”

Leah decides it’s best to just… disengage. With any luck, he’ll be bored within a few minutes and head back indoors. She responds with stony silence instead, though she knows her eyes must be flashing with irritation. Bobby always had stupid shit to say about her eyes, and her hair, and pretty much every feature on her body. Really, he had a lot of stupid shit to say in general during their seven months of dating, because he was a stupid shit. Still is, really.

“What?” he says, after a moment. “This doesn’t bring up any fond memories? You, me, third year of uni… Out on the terrace listening to that band play-,”

“Yeah,” Leah can’t help herself. “Who was on guitar? Your roommate? Dylan? Or was it Brian? Whichever one who gave you a black eye after you fucked his girlfriend three weeks later.”

In retrospect, that should have been her first warning sign.

“Harsh,” Bobby says, around his cigarette. 

Leah is unable to find much alluring about smoking because she used to do it, all the time, so the mystique is well and truly lost, but really, at least Mason never tries to carry on a full-on conversation, puffing and hacking, while he’s lit up. 

“C’est la vie,” she says, instead. “You, me, outside for a smoke, you being fucking annoying… it’s all coming back to me now.”

“Yeah,” he says, “I do remember that, angel-,”

“Don’t start, Robert,” she warns, coldly, but he plunges ahead.

“I was so fucking annoying,” Bobby says, smugly, “that thirty minutes later you were bent over in the bathroom looking for a dish towel after we destroyed that-,”

“Just stop talking, how about that?” Leah says. “Can we do silence? Is that achievable? Bobby. Why the fuck would I want to think about that?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. The best lay of your life, feels like that should be memorable-,”

Leah barks a laugh, loud and obnoxious, at that, and is vindicated by the flash of annoyance across his handsome face. He never liked her laugh, unless it was at one of his stupid pseudo-intellectual jokes. They got into a massive fight over it, two months into their relationship, because he felt like she ‘was never on his side’. All this over a failed trivia night in a pub. 

But of course at the time, twenty and overcome with the feelings that all this mattered so fucking much, that if she couldn’t get this one thing right, her relationship with Bobby, it would all crumble down around her ears, she was reduced to tears by the time they got back to the flat he shared with three other guys (none of whom’s girlfriends he’d tried to seduce yet). 

She remembers that vividly, his annoyance shifting from her laughter to her repressed sniffles as he unlocked the door. They were both drunk, not wasted, but buzzed enough to have no filter. 

“You look pathetic when you cry like that,” he’d said, even as he opened the door and chivalrously let her go ahead. “Really, Leah. Like a fucking six year old. Do you think that’s attractive? You think I want to see that?”

She’d stood in the kitchen, drinking a cup of water, while he angrily slammed his way into his tiny bedroom, then back out again, five minutes later, somewhat chastened after freshening up in the bathroom. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he’d said, pulling her close, arms looped around her waist while h nestled his chin on her shoulder, his breath hot in her ear. “Alright? I’m sorry. You look beautiful. You forgive me?” It was always like that, with Bobby. A leading question, from start to finish. 

Leah wishes she’d snapped ‘no, you asshole’, jerked away from him, and walked out, never to return, but instead she’d tearfully nodded, apologized, and followed him in to bed, waking up in the morning with a splitting headache to the sound of his soft snores and his roommates playing Call of Duty while burning poptarts in the microwave. 

Now she shifts away from him on instinct, running a hand through her mop of red hair, to the shaved side of her head. The stubble is growing back out; she’ll need a touch-up next week. She’d do it herself, but she’s too scared of permanently fucking up her hairline. Tina would never let her live it down. Nor would Douglas, and his lack of filter. Luckily she’s not having to make small talk with her most annoying coworker, too.

Once again, she wishes for Nat’s easy smiles and warm laughter, Ava’s steady assurance and confident poster, Felix’s infectiously immature sense of humor, and Mason’s-

“Are you growing it back out?” Bobby asks, still having yet to take the hint that she wants to chat and reminisce with him like she wants a bullet in the head. “Your hair? You know, I always thought it was prettiest while we were at school together. You wore it so long back then.” He exhales, and shoots her a smile he must think is fond. 

If he still has yet to put two and two together; their long, drawn-out, explosive break-up, him badmouthing her to their entire year and putting her social life firmly in the grave, them both nearly getting expelled for plagiarism, and her dropping out without any warning a month and a half later, Leah really doesn’t feel like spelling it out for him now. 

And why should she? She’s moved past it. Well, not past hating him, he’s still on her shit list, and always will be, but she’s accepted the turns and twists her life has taken, and she is done dwelling on the past.

The scarring on her neck prickles, a gently menacing reminder, under the light peppering of rain. 

“I did a lot of things differently back then,” she settles on, neutrally. She should be awarded some sort of peace prize for this. Even three years ago she’d have gone for his throat by now. 

Bobby moves a little closer. “Was I one of them?”

And just like that, she’s not getting that peace prize. “I really didn’t think anyone could be this dense,” Leah snaps, “but since you’ve decided to go for gold here, yes, Bobby, you were something I ‘did’. Past tense. I’m not sure how many ways I can possibly say this, but that ‘did’ is never becoming a ‘do’, again.”

He recoils for a moment, looking genuinely hurt, but not long enough for her to relish the sensation. His expression smooths back out, replaced by one of his trademark mocking little smiles. “I don’t see why we can’t have a pleasant working relationship. You’re the only detective in town, I’m the only reporter. Don’t you think we should put aside our childish disputes in favor of the greater good?”

Leah stares at him for a moment, then splutters a hard laugh. “Wow. The greater good? Bobby, we didn’t get in a shoving match in fucking kindergarten. We were together, you were a raging dick, we broke up, you’re still an asshole, end of story. Maybe if you’d at all evolved past that particular point, I’d consider being civil with you, but clearly that’s always been too much to ask.”

His smile flickers into a scowl. “I don’t recall you being this perfect little victim yourself, Leah. You had your own issues.”

She remembers that vividly, too. Having a panic attack in the bathroom while he stewed outside. By the time she’d collected herself he’d been incensed; they were twenty minutes late for their reservation, dinner with his parents, so he could show off his bubbly girlfriend and his perfect grades and flirt with the waitress if she was anywhere between the ages of twenty and forty. 

The only thing that had stopped him from leaving her there, he’d informed her, furiously, was that he wouldn’t let her humiliate him any further by making him show up alone. 

He’d calmed down by the time they were in the car- Bobby’s temper was always like that, dramatic, vitriolic flare-ups followed by a rapid mellowing-out and then honeyed apologies, before the cycle inevitably repeated itself the next time she disappointed or embarrassed him. And she, Leah quickly learned, was a very disappointing and embarrassing person to be with. 

She knows now that it was all just a function of Bobby’s insecurity. At heart, he’s never been comfortable in his own skin, has always craved acceptance because he’s never had any real close friends, never truly been welcomed into any one group because he can’t help burning bridges, sooner or later. He’s handsome and charismatic and always gets off on the right foot with people, but he seldom stays there. He’s intelligent but has to believe he’s the smartest person in the room. 

Everything he hated about her was something he hated about himself. She was being too timid and anxious, or she was tipsy and flirting with some other guy, or she was disengaged and aloof and mistreating him. She was clinging to him too much or she was acting like she didn’t need him at all. She’d either overdressed or underdressed, and she really should have known better. She didn’t answer his texts fast enough. She didn’t get out enough, people thought she was weird, why couldn’t she make more suitable friends? 

She must think she was better than him. No, she was too self-pitying, it was pathetic and cringe-inducing. She needed to stop feeling sorry for herself. He felt neglected. No, he felt suffocated. No, he just wanted her to be normal and love him and please, for the love of God, stop talking, Leah, you’re not doing yourself any favors, right? 

Cue the whole table erupting into giggles and snickers while she stared down at the menu, shoulders hunched. 

“Look, I didn’t mean it like that,” he’d say, later, as they walked home, Leah trying to seem unruffled and unfazed, so what, plenty of couples teased each other around friends, it was just their dynamic, she didn’t need to be treated like glass, she was fine, it was fine- “You’re not angry, right? Leah?”

“I’m fine,” she’d say, slipping her arm into his, breathing in his cologne, which always smelled nice, and reassuring herself that if he smelled nice, then he must feel nice, and if he felt nice, than this was fine, everything was okay. “Don’t worry about it.”

So he didn’t.

Leah realizes now that she hasn’t said anything in response, has just been staring out into the rainy night, smelling his cigarette smoke. 

Bobby sighs, put-upon, convinced she’s up to her old tricks, as melodramatic as ever, and stubs his cigarette out on the rail. “All I’m saying is, we were both just kids, okay? I know-,” for the first time in her recollection, he hesitates, “I know I wasn’t a great boyfriend. I was immature. I was stupid. But I do still care, you know. About you. You don’t have what we had and then throw it out the window, Leah. It still means something.”

He flicks his cigarette over the rail, down into the dark of the yard. Leah watches it fall, an ember fading into the black, with suppressed disgust. 

Then he lets his hand brush against hers. Oh, fuck no. They’re not having a repeat of when he showed up at her flat and tried to kiss her. Leah jerks away in disgust- then sucks in a breath of shock as a hand emerges from the dark, over the rail, grabs Bobby by the front of his pressed dress shirt, and yanks him forward. 

Bobby all but squeals in terror, losing his footing, and goes toppling over the rail, which is not even waist height for him. Leah watches as he lands in the ornamental ferns some ten feet below, not sure if she should shout in alarm or shriek with laughter. 

A groan floats up to her ears, as Mason clambers up and straddles the rail, looking at her rather smugly. He must have come here in the rain; his dark hair is nearly black when it’s wet, flattened against his scalp, and the shadows make his face all hard angles and crooked grin, grey eyes gleaming in the faint light from indoors. 

“But soft,” Leah says, “what light through yonder window breaks?”

“Pretty sure that’s my line, sweetheart.”

He’s wearing a faded, damp tee shirt and the same old jeans she can’t believe haven’t ripped or scuffed beyond wear yet, though she’s seen the inside of Mason’s closet, and it’s not a wide range of variety in outfits in there. The brightest colored article of clothing he has is a deep red button-down dress shirt she doesn’t think he has any intention of wearing anywhere, ever. Nat must have ordered it for him from a catalogue; Leah has seen her closet, too, and it is… high end. 

“Nice to see you dressed for the occasion,” she says, craning her neck over his shoulder to make sure Bobby is, in fact, still alive and not paralyzed from the waist down, plotting his revenge. To her (very mild) relief he seems alright; he’s sat up and glowering up at them, though he ducks his head back down when Mason turns to call down-

“And don’t fucking litter!”

“Fuck you! This is going in the paper! You’ve just assaulted a member of the press!”

“That’s funny, could have sworn you slipped!” Leah shouts back to him. “Unless you’d like me to look into all those parking violations you’ve got this year! My weekend’s free, if you want to take it court, Robert!”

Bobby gets to his feet, sodden and winded, and trudges off, back around the large house. 

Leah glances back inside, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s heard them over the music, though she thinks she catches a glimpse of her mother in the crowd for a split second. 

“I got your text,” Mason says, when she looks back at him. He’s slung his arm casually around her shoulders, as if they were just walking around town. Leah thinks it’s about the funniest thing ever; the man who swears he has no interest in commitment and claims to ‘hate it’ when anyone so much as jokes about them ‘going steady’ or her ‘tying him down’, somehow always finds an excuse to put his arm around her, even in public. Especially in public. 

After a moment’s hesitation, she relaxes against him, ignoring the fact that he is wet from the rain and her hair is frizzing out and her eyeliner is probably running, which is just about the only makeup she’s wearing besides some lip gloss. 

“Yeah? Which one?” she mutters. “From today or last night, when I sent you a whole paragraph explaining my dilemma and you came back with a lowercase ‘no’?”

“Both,” she can feel his smiling against her hair. When he actually, truly grins, it’s really kind of sweet; he’s got the dangerous, edgy smirk and leer down pat, but when Mason grins in amusement or happiness, there is the faintest indication of a dimple in his one tanned and freckled cheek. “Figured I could make an exception.”

“Right, your legendary anti-party rule.”

“I like some parties,” the hand not over her shoulders finds her hip, and splays there for a moment, then tightens around the loose fabric of her flowing dress, like he might bunch it up in his hand. “Parties of two, or three-,”

“Shit, you want to invite Tina to come hang next time?” Leah can’t resist goading. “Okay, let me just text her-,” he shakes his wet hair in her face like a dog, prompting a squeal that splits his name in half. “May-son! I was kidding! Fuck!”

He removes his hand from her hip and plucks at her satchel, very unfashionably strewn across her dress. “What time is it?”

“What, you’re gonna turn into a pumpkin if you’re out past midnight?”

“I’m asking when you can get out of here,” he says, impatiently, in her ear. His breath is warm, and it tickles.

Leah jerks away, though she’s grinning, and laughs when he traps her knees between his, pushing them together while she rests her had back against his chest. “I don’t know. Rebecca had me making the rounds, then Bobby cornered me out here.”

He grumbles in the back of his throat, “Don’t know why you even bother talking to that asshole.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” she says dryly, “but he likes to make himself hard to shake unless I want to make a scene.”

“So fucking make one, who cares?”

“I am actually a professional, you know,” she snorts. “I can’t just be shooting off at the mouth-,”

“Bullshit. You do that plenty.”

“Okay, I can’t be shooting off at the mouth every single time-,”

“You’re the only detective in this town,” Mason says. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”

“Wow,” says Leah sarcastically, tilting her chin back to look up at him, though he’s still dripping rainwater on her. “Bit authoritarian there, aren’t we? There’s such a thing as separation of powers, and-,”

“And I think you want to get out of here just as much as I do,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking up into a crooked smile.

Leah exhales, then relents. She likes being with Mason because she doesn’t have to think much. Maybe that’s unhealthy, but it’s easy. She doesn’t have to worry about his feelings, she doesn’t have to protect herself, she doesn’t have to angst and fret over their every interaction, because it’s not a relationship, not really, it’s a slightly unstable friendship that involves a lot of sex and napping. 

“Fine. Let me just tell Sung, or someone-,”

“Leah. Mason.”

They both stiffen; Rebecca has slipped out to join them, silhouetted by the warm light from indoors spilling out into the dark night. 

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here,” she says to Mason, who to his credit, only sounds a little sheepish when he replies, “Good evening, Agent Greene.”

“Hey,” Leah says, hoarsely. “So… Mason just thought he’d drop by…”

“I assume this has nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Marks just came in through the front door covered in mud and leaves and reeking of cigarettes?”

Mason spreads his empty hands in surrender. “Not mine.”

“Bobby smokes too,” Leah mutters, then, seeing her mother’s exasperated stare, adds, “Look, I’ll come back inside in a minute, I just-,”

“Captain Sung is under the impression you went home early with a migraine,” Rebecca cuts her off crisply. “So I’d suggest you make use of that excuse while you can.” Despite her typical straight face, Leah thinks she detects a glimmer of… something, in her mother’s green eyes. 

“Mum,” she says, slowly, “did you just… make up an excuse for me to skip out early?”

“I agree with her,” Mason says, in what he probably thinks is a winning tone, but really just sounds raspy with excitement. “No sense wasting time. You should go home and straight to bed. For your migraine.”

Now he’s pushing it; the glimmer is gone. 

“Mason?” Rebecca says. 

“Sorry ma’am.”

Her mother makes her way back inside, closing the French doors behind her. 

“You know, I think she’s fond of you.”

“Nah,” he says, “she just wants to cut you some slack.” 

It’s not said in a pitying or sympathetic or even optimistic tone; it is what it is, a statement of fact. 

Mason’s fond of those. 

He might be a cynic, but never to the point of denying what’s in front of him, the same way he will admit, when pressed, when it is just the two of them alone together, that Felix is his favorite, the closest person he’s ever had to a brother, and that Nat’s fussing makes him feel safe, and Ava’s respect means something to him, and he doesn’t want to disappoint her. She hoards these confessions the way a child might sweets, savoring them, feeling a triumphant thrill at having pried something out of him.

“I parked on the road,” she says, hiking up her skirt in order to clamber over the wet railing. Mason is staring at her. “What? We can’t go back through the house like this.”

“Nothing,” he says, and climbs over as well, so they’re both perched on the edge of the balcony. The darkness makes the drop look farther than it is, but it’s no small jump, either. 

She punches him lightly on the arm, then adjusts her slick grip. “So what, we both jump on three-”

He lets go of the rail and vaults down into the bushes before she’s even finished her question. 

“Mason!” she hisses, annoyed to be left up here. She can hear voices on the other side of the glass doors. Guests looking for a break from the music and the heat inside. She’d rather they not come out here to find her dangling off the balcony.

In response he just smirks and holds out his arms. Leah huffs, then lets go of the railing, bends her knees slightly, and jumps, holding up her skirt with one fist so it doesn’t tangle around her legs or tear on impact. He catches her with ease, though he does stumble back half a step, slipping in the wet shrubbery. She’s as pleased about that as she always is; he’s so innately graceful that she gets some sick pleasure from ever seeing him trip or fumble something. 

Once they’ve extricated themselves from the bushes, they tramp across the yard, through the wet grass and mud, and she’s once again glad she didn’t wear one of her two pairs of heels to this event. Once in the long driveway, they wind around parked cars and the caterers’ van, down to the road, where Leah pulls her keys out of her bag and unlocks the hatchback Mason claims to loathe so much. 

“You sure you don’t want to drive?” she says slyly, as he yanks open the passenger side door, looking annoyed at its squeal of protest. 

“No. Some of us have a more refined palette when it comes to what we get behind the wheel of.”

“Mason, you’ve never even owned a car,” she points out as she clambers into the driver’s seat, arranging her skirt around her legs.

“That’s not the point,” he says, slamming his door shut with more force than necessary. “You don’t have to own a restaurant to know what good food tastes like.”

“So?”

“So, this piece of junk- fuck!” He’s managed to hit his head on the ceiling, which he does every time, this car was not built to comfortably seat anyone over five foot ten, “is the microwave TV dinner of cars.”

“She gets the job done,” Leah says, stroking the steering wheel with a consoling tone. “Don’t listen to him, baby. I respect you.” The engine whines in appreciation. Mason looks mildly revolted. “Put your seatbelt on,” she adds, as he tries to cross his legs so they’re slightly less folded in on themselves. 

He shoots her an incredulous look. “I could go through the windshield at fifty miles per hour and walk it off, sweetheart.”

“I don’t drive assholes who don’t wear their seatbelts, sunshine,” she retorts with mock sweetness, then gives him a golf clap when he begrudgingly clicks it into place. 

She’s always liked driving with him. Neither are much for smalltalk in the car, and while most loud music hurts his ears, he doesn’t care if she plays the radio very softly, so long as there’s not any static crackle. 

It begins to properly rain once they’ve left the upper class neighborhood the Friedmans reside in, and Leah’s always loved the rain- it’s part of why she could never bring herself to permanently move away from this place. 

She loves the way it smells after rainfall, she loves the sound of it pattering on the windows, and the sound of her windshield wipers going back and forth, and the sound her little car makes as it sputters up and down slippery hills and over large puddles in the road. 

Mason nods off, as he almost always does in the car, no matter where they’re going to or from. His hair falls in front of his angular face and with his chin tucked down against his shoulder, he looks younger, more vulnerable, the streetlights casting queasy shadows across his closed eyes. 

Sometimes she has to resist the urge to reach over and touch him, even though she’s too anxious to not be a very careful driver, contrary to popular belief- yes, okay, it took her three tries to get her license, and she was twenty two, but that just means she was extra prepared! 

He’s still dozing by the time she’s parked in the dark lot outside her building, some twenty minutes later. Leah just sits there for a moment with the engine idling, watching him, before she turns it off, and he starts awake, yawning and rubbing his knuckles across his eyes. 

They troop inside in silence; the building is pretty quiet aside from the muffled sounds of televisions or doors opening and shutting, and Leah leads the way up two flights of stairs to her floor. He follows her inside, shutting the door behind them as she flicks on the lights, then takes her satchel off with a sigh and sits down on the couch to remove her boots. 

He slouches down beside her, and pulls one leg, then another, up across his lap. 

She laughs when he manages to get them both off in record time, not even bothering with the buckles but wrenching them off her feet. She’s wearing pantyhose because she wasn’t going to shove her bare feet into leather shoes, and he runs his hands up and down the smoothness of her freckled legs before tugging her forward, so her legs are clenched around his waist, and she is more or less wrapped around him on her small, shabby couch, in his lap. 

He kisses her as hard and fierce as she has come to expect from him, and she can feel him smile when she arcs up against him, gripping his shoulders more firmly when his mouth lands on her neck instead. “You really missed me tonight, huh?”

“Nat wanted to have a board game night.” He stops kissing her in order to fully expand on this travesty, grey eyes alight with outrage. “Do you know how insane Ava gets during that shit? And Felix doesn’t even read the rules-,”

“What happened?” she murmurs, taking the lapse in his attention to kiss the stubble along his jaw instead. “Did your real estate empire fall out from under you?”

“Yeah,” he says, grabbing her skirt and hitching it up for her as she removes her arms from around his neck and leans back so he can pull her loose fitting dress over her head. “I’ve decided to go into the commercial sector instead.”

“Wow,” she says, shivering, because it’s always been drafty in this flat, and she’s now clad in her bra and underwear on top of his damp and cold clothing, “How’s that working out for you?”

“I’m thinking of buying out Marks’ shitty newspaper.” He obediently holds up his arms for her to pull off his shirt, then kicks off his shoes as she clambers off him and grabs his hand. “Put him in charge of… sorting through letters to the editor.”

“Ooh, cutthroat.”

“I’ve read your local rags. You’ve got some headcases in this place.”

Leah snorts as she leads him into her bedroom, smiling at the familiar metallic jangle of his belt coming undone. “I know. You’re speaking to the head headcase.”

“I think you give amazing head,” he says, voice lowering with suggestion.

That makes her seize with snickers and giggles, so hard that she is still chuckling when he pounces on her, her old mattress creaking loudly underneath them as she helps him pull his jeans all the way off, and his socks. 

“No, no, no, you’ll rip them-,” she swats at him when he tries to peel down her pantyhose, then gives up; there’s already a massive run down one leg. By the time they’re off she knows she can never wear them again. He balls them up and lobs them at her laundry basket, and makes the shot. 

She sighs at the proud grin he displays when he turns back to her, even as she wriggles backwards into her pillows. “Amazing.”

“I try.” He lays down beside her, instead of immediately straddling her, or rolling over and pulling her on top of him.

Leah found it very odd the first time he did it, assumed he was simply tired or had suddenly changed his mind about wanting sex. They lay there like that for a few moments, their breath intermingling, her hands splayed out against his chest, one of his cupping her ass, the other around her neck, not to squeeze or yank but just to feel her pulse thudding underneath his thumb. 

“When Marks was talking to you before,” he says.

Leah groans softly. 

Mason presses on, undeterred. “I don’t know what the fuck he was on about,” he says, “and I don’t really want to know-,”

Good, she thinks. Leah dated several men and one woman after Bobby, and more or less they could be divided into two camps: they were either so bad they made Bobby look like a saint, or they wanted to fix her. Whatever was or is wrong with her. The broken bird metaphor and all that, only this broken bird fucked up their hands with her talons and beak, so they ended up giving up on wildlife rehabilitation, permanently. 

She’s glad that Mason doesn’t care, or if he does, that he doesn’t care enough to know. She doesn’t want him to know, doesn’t want to put herself in the position of being in any way dependent on his approval, comfort, or reassurances. That’s what got her into trouble with Bobby. He was her judge, jury, and executioner. She filtered her self worth through his eyes. She doesn’t care what Mason thinks of her. They’re friendly in a slightly hostile and flippant way and sometimes they say mean shit to each other without thinking, and that’s fine. Really. 

She can’t imagine him holding her close and stroking her hair and whispering how brave and beautiful and strong she is into her ear. The idea of it is laughable. 

“But I think you know he’s full of shit,” Mason concludes. “So. Get over it.” He seems relieved to have gotten that much out, as if he just reached the summit of a mountain, that mountain being ‘expressing consolation to a friend without offending them further’. 

“Yeah,” she says. “I wasn’t even thinking about it.” That’s a lie, and he knows, it’s very difficult for anyone to lie to Mason, especially not while lying naked beside him, staring him in the face. 

But if he wasn’t willing to tolerate the occasional bald-faced lie, she doubts they’d be here together. 

“What were you thinking about?” he asks huskily, steering them both back into the safe and smooth waters of innuendo, away from any pesky rocks.

Leah arranges a carefree grin, focuses on how much she wants him to keep touching her and how soothing the patter of the rain on her windows is. “Guess.”

**Author's Note:**

> I actually had to rewrite parts of this one shot because Mason and Leah's relationship came across as a bit too fluffy. They are not really 'a couple' in this, and Leah prefers to see them as friends with benefits, which she considers to be a safer sort of relationship where she's not under any obligation to be emotionally vulnerable or to talk about her issues. And Mason, obviously, has never actually had any sort of serious relationship before but is nevertheless drawn to Leah despite claiming otherwise.
> 
> This was a prompt fill for the prompt 'Chivalry is dead (I shot it in the head)' on my [tumblr](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/), but I used the lyrics from Jessie Ware's 'Ooh La La'. 
> 
> For some context in case the parts where Leah is reflecting on her past relationship with Bobby were confusing: they dated for a little over half a year in university. When Bobby was caught plagiarizing her papers for his own work they were both nearly expelled, and he tried to throw her under the bus in the process to save his own skin. While both escaped getting kicked out, Leah broke up with Bobby, and most of their mutual friends sided with him while he made her life a living hell. She dropped out a month or so later, and this obviously had a major impact on her life. So in short, fuck Bobby Marks and his emotionally abusive ways!
> 
> But also don't throw people off balconies, even low ones, that's really dangerous.


End file.
